Thoughts from the interface of science, religion, law and culture

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

EVENTS

MRA Smacked Down by Appeals Court

The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a district court ruling dismissing a lawsuit by nutty Men’s Rights Activist Roy Den Hollander seeking to deny public funds to Columbia University because it was teaching the “religion of feminism.” You can read the full ruling here.

According to Hollander, feminism is a “modern-day religion,” and by providing public funding to Columbia, the Defendants unconstitutionally “promote and favor the religion Feminism while inhibiting other contradictory viewpoints.”
Hollander, who seeks declaratory and injunctive relief, contends that he has standing to bring his Establishment Clause claim both as a New York State and federal taxpayer, and as a Columbia alumnus whose “direct contact with the offensive religion” of feminism makes him “very uncomfortable” and interferes with his “use and enjoyment of Columbia as [a]
member[ ] of the Columbia community.”

The case was dismissed on the grounds of collateral estoppel, which means that the court is refusing to hear the case because they had already ruled on an identical case brought by Hollander against another university. This guy almost makes Orly Taitz seem credible. He wrote about it on the A Voice For Men website last year:

The third in my trilogy of anti-feminist cases is against “Women’s Studies Programs,” or as I affectionately call them “Witches’ Studies.” The fight started in 2009 and is continuing with a second federal case now in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Both cases claimed, in part, that Feminism is a religion; therefore, the state and federal governments cannot provide aid to Women’s Studies because it would violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Sounds dumb, but it’s not.

MRAs seem to be defined by their incredible stupidity while having massive over confidence in their own intelligence … We should thank them from a feminist perspective as they are single handedly breaking down the sexist stereotype that men are the rational thinky ones not emotional and “hysterical” like the wimmin.

A clear, coherent definition that could not just as easily apply to an ideology which involves no gods, nothing supernatural, no transcendent reality riddled with normativity yet lacking in falsifiability. No top-down agency, just some things some people believe in very strongly. Which it is absolutely legal to teach.

…as a Columbia alumnus whose “direct contact with the offensive religion” of feminism makes him “very uncomfortable” and interferes with his “use and enjoyment of Columbia as [a] member[ ] of the Columbia community.”

You know, even in my sympathetic days WRT to the MRA viewpoint, I would never have stooped to being such a…what’s the word…as this guy.

Oh yeah. Pussy. You’re a pussy dude.

… “Women’s Studies Programs,” or as I affectionately call them “Witches’ Studies.”

Oh come on guy, you know you want one of those letters to be changed to a “B”. See above.

SallyStrange* – Offense by false etymology (you’re about 500 years too late).
‘Pussy‘ is, in this case, derived from ‘pusillanimous‘ (cowardly, timid) and is first attested to in English in the mid-14th century, the usage you’re thinking of is first found in English in the mid-19th century.
Not even close, and certainly no cigar**.
Dingo
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* I was biting my tongue (so to speak) but I just had to correct this one (as I have on other occasions)
** ‘Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar’

And were we speaking of ‘all the guys in high school’? No we were not.
Now you’re somewhere near the forward of the same book (although perhaps not quite on the same page) perhaps we can continue…
Dingo

dingojack,
Bullshit. Where “pussy” as an insult derived is utterly irrelevant; now “pussy” refers to the female genitals, but is used primarily if not exclusively to insult men. Why do you think that is, dingojack? Let’s see an explanation that does not involve sexism?

DJ, I’m disappointed in you.
I mean, while your use of a cherry-picked, one-of-many-possibilities origin to excuse what is a sexist insult was transparently ridiculous and everything, I didn’t expect you to abandon your argument after one little comment.

And were we speaking of ‘all the guys in high school’? No we were not.

That’s what you did there. You barked and then ran for the hills.
Your claim that “pussy” as an insult isn’t sexist because of your chosen etymological theory can only be supported by two arguments

A. that this etymology somehow nullifies the current understanding of the meaning of the word by the vast majority of the population including both the person who posted it here and high school students and everyone else, or…
B. the commonly understood meaning of “pussy” as an insult by both those using it to injure feelings and by those on the receiving end is that it means “pusillanimous.”

You don’t do that. You dismiss my high school students and thus essentially admit you know the commonly understood meaning and therefore intent of the insult.

So all you have left is at best “I know most if not all guys say it meaning female genitalia, and I know that most people called the name receive the insult with that in mind, but since I was able to find some excuse, some escape clause… etc.”

You don’t have a very good argument if you have to abandon it and grasp for something else the second it’s questioned.

This is so wrong. In my college days, a course called “American Women’s Experience” added richness to my Liberal Arts education because so much coursework was otherwise patriarchal dominate. As a woman, I took notice.

TCC – Apologies for taking time to get back to you. I have been searching out a creditable link, unfortunately I can now find no credible source, but I do remember commenting on it on an (much) earlier thread.
Jaffa Hots – no, that was the sense that it was meant (I suppose, I’m a not a mind-reader but it seems reasonable not to jump to offense immediately unless there is other evidence. Do you have such evidence?)
A) The etymology is a false one, so you’re offense is equally false.
B) Whose community? What understanding? You’ve never heard of ‘pussy’ used in any other context?
We were talking of a specific posters usage. Attempting to create false etymologies that apply to all uses you can think of (in order to claim offense) has little weight.
Dingo
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Get ready to be offended!
OED 2nd ed. Vol XII p 900
PUSSY
1. A cat. 1726 MRS DELANY in Life & Cor. (1862) 124 “My new pussey is… white,… with black spots”.
2a. A proper name for a hare. 1715 T CAVE in M. M. Verney Verney’s Letters of the 18th Cent. (1930) “I xvii 342 “The dog is very young and has seen but a few pussies, but… I doubt not of his having Appeal’d and profess’d enemy to your Hares by this Time”.
2b A jocular name for a tiger. 1873 Routledge’s Yng. Gent. Mag. 535 “I should have liked to pot a pussy, particularly such bloody thirsty brute as this one seems to be”
3a. Applied to a girl or woman. Esp. one that is finicky, old-maidish, or an effeminate man; a homosexual. 1583 STUBBS Anat. Abuse (1877) I 97 “You shall haue euery sawcy boy to catch vp a women & marie her… so he haue his pretie pussie to huggle withal, it forceth not”.
& etc.